Hope without Wings
by unhappytidings
Summary: While fighting the ongoing battle with the Leviathan, the boys get an unexpected call from Bobby. Comatose Castiel is near death one minute and very alive the next. The price was a little touch of Dean's soul and, oh yeah, his memories. Can Cas atone for his sins, while helping Dean try and remember how he fits in this universe? Destiel! AU after Season 7.


Disclaimer- I do not own Supernatural, nor do I intend to make money off of the work of fanfiction. I am not affiliated with the CW, Kripke, Singer, nor am I involved with anyone else in the show.

AN- Hi! So this plot bunny has been running rampant in my mind for a while now and I'm tired of caging it. This fanfic is rated 'M' for future chapters. It will include violence, gross scenes, sexual entanglements, and well, language because it's Supernatural. This story is branching off and becoming AU from mid-season seven when the Leviathan all, but destroyed Castiel. Also, Dean is pissed at him and off doing bad things, like killing Sam's friends. Just thought it would make sense if I got you up to speed. Okay thanks! Also, review!

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Hope without Wings

After retrieving the Impala from that crazy conspiracy theorist, who for the eighth time today, spouted nonsense that sounded better suited for X-Files, Sam and Dean were back in Baby and everything was for a moment, right with the world. She was purring like a kitten as they drove down from the backwater town. It was something wonderful and simple all at once. The brothers together however briefly, that was a little bit of grace if Dean Winchester ever knew it. The smell of the seats and presets all in the right order. Perfect.

Sam looked briefly disgusted as he found a ripped piece of paper in his jacket pocket. His brother was pretty sure that he had spied, "Sam loves Becky" in triplicate on the page. Gross. He decided for now, Dean's brother could go without a bout of teasing for two minutes. So, Dean felt a smirk spread across his face as he turned up the volume of the classic rock station that was coming in loud and clear. Fingers drummed on the wheel along to the beat and then the phone rang. Dean inwardly groaned as Sam turned down the volume knob with a click and answered. It was Bobby.

"Yeah?" Sam answered, looking straight ahead as Dean turned down a windy road that would eventually connect to an interstate. Dean glanced over to his brother, curious when no other words followed. Sam cleared his throat, face going white. "Hold on. You sure?" Bobby apparently said something that meant he was very sure, because Sam looked over to his brother and answered into the phone. "Wait, hold up Bobby. I'll put you on speaker, so we can all be up to speed." Bobby groaned loudly, blowing air into the mic. "All right boys. So, am I on speaker, yet?" Dean gave an affirmative grunt, steeling himself, white knuckling the wheel. He could already tell, from Bobby's tone it wasn't anything good. "So, a body appeared on my doorstep this morning. A whole one." Bobby paused, for what Dean would imagine would be to take a shot of whiskey. "Castiel's body." Dean felt himself blink dumbly, deciding he wasn't going to get his hopes up. After all, it would be too much to ask for to have a shot at kicking a live Angel butt into next Tuesday. Cas had it coming. Even if the guy wanted to atone and to make it up to them, Dean would have to have a fifth of good whiskey and match before he could start talking to the guy like his buddy again. And that was only if Cas was kicking. Which apparently, was not the case.

Sam was the next one to speak. "Bobby said, the body looks like the real deal. Checks out. Doesn't bleed like a creature from the black lagoon." Bobby cleared his throat.

"Only problem I'm seein' is the lack of life. Well, he's doing this awkward not breathing trick. And then randomly his chest will expand like he's trying to hold his breath or something. Look, boys just get down here. I'm not going to call him dead. Just mostly, so while I cook up something to get him for lively, you guys go on a run. Fresh out of beer, whiskey, and if this guy wakes up. He's gonna be hungry. Just hoping, not for humans." Bobby hung up. And Sam looked over at Dean.

"So uh…ideas?"

Dean had no effing clue what would even have the juice to one, pull Cas out of the pond the Leviathan threw him into. Two, recessiate an angel. Three, put him on Bobby's porch at his safehouse. And four, who would have the motivation to do all of it. Dean shrugged his shoulders, thinking briefly about the handprint scar that was there. "No clue, but that's nothing new. If you and I can come back from Hell; guess Cas' body can magically appear on a porch." Sam pocketed his phone looking out the passenger side window, while Dean pulled onto the interstate.

"Yeah, but those times were both, uh…Cas' doing. So who saves an angel? Unless God decided to come back from vacation and pitch in again?" He watched Dean turn up the radio with the volume dial. His brother had no comment. Not that he expected him to, he supposed. 

It was four hours before the boys pulled up into the unmarked cabin that Bobby was set up shop in. Like any case, Dean and Sam took their time getting out, collecting groceries, and their surroundings. The walk up the gravel was a slow and measured one. Sam held the brown paper bags and Dean, was holding the case of cold beer, tucking his keys into his pocket. He looked up the sides of the path and onto the porch. No struggle. No signs of dragging. Whatever had brought Castiel here, didn't physically bring him. Which means he was zapped here. Sammy's 'divine intervention' idea was becoming plausible. Of course, that left many more questions unanswered. Why now? Why not two months ago when Dean had watched Cas slip into the oily pit of a reservoir? He knew that his own spitefulness toward himself, would have him looking a gift horse, just because all good things come with a price and normally it's a huge one. For example, Lisa and Ben were wonderful. Best year of his life. Can't know who he is or where he goes. Because demons. So, Cas appearing out of the big blue yonder, well that mojo would have to have an epic bill. Other angels maybe? It seemed unlikely because all of the ones stronger than Cas wanted him dead. And demons would have no motivation to raise an overzealous god for a week from the briny deep. This had crossroads demon written all over it, but Sam and Dean hadn't made a deal. And Bobby wasn't keen enough on Cas, to make a deal for him.

There was an angle here Dean wasn't looking at. Sam wrestled with the door and the wooden floor squeezed inside, as Bobby came to open it. They set down the groceries on the already over-encumbered kitchen table, where crushed and empty bags sat from the last food run. Room didn't smell sulfur-y. In fact, it smelled more like bleach than any place he'd been to in his life. Borax was an anti-Leviathan paste if he ever knew it. Sam was unpacking the groceries somewhere behind him, and Bobby was making an exasperated tone as he closed the door behind them. Dean found his way to Cas before he had even known it. His feet sort of just took him there. Bobby had him laid up on the couch, covering him with a blanket. That damned trench over the back of the couch. How could he look the same after everything that had happened? The last time he saw the real Cas in there, he was covered in decaying skin, blood, black goo. That fixed expression of determination, self-hatred, and guilt was fixed in those blue eyes of his. The last moment before the weird Levi-a-things took over was burned into his brain. Dean pushed the warm feeling body of his friend a little more toward the couch to sit next to him. His eyes watched the slow rise and fall of the angel's chest.

Like he knew what Dean was thinking, Bobby answered somewhere behind him. "He's been breathing normally for the last two hours or so. It was like something started up the old engine and it just took time to warm up. He was ice cold when I brought him in and he's positively rosy now. Said a few reviving spells fir good measure. Seemed to help." Sensing Dean needed a second alone with the comatose angel, Bobby asked Sam to go collect firewood, making an excuse about a winter storm coming in. Sam just nodded and abandoned his task of putting groceries away. Grateful for the excuse to have a minute to himself. Bobby made an excuse to go down into the basement. "Gonna go mop up the mess downstairs. Call, if you can wake Sleeping Beauty."

Footsteps seemed to die somewhere in the distance, but all Dean could hear was Cas' breathing. Here he was, sitting next to his old friend. Or at least they were before they stopped trusting each other. Call him stupid, but there were even moments, when there was something else there. Cas was there for him when there was literally no one else. He was there for Sam. And that meant something. God, he sounded like a Lifetime movie, even in his head. The guy was, different to the rest of them. Everything else in Dean's life was cut and dry. Bobby was like Dad to him. Sam was his brother. Even if some days he didn't want to be. And Cas was. Cas was _something._

"Hey Cas, you in there?" Dean asked quietly, a bit frustrated with himself for just staring at the sleeping face of a man for so long. "Cas, buddy. Whenever you want to start, making this shit up to me, I'm thinkin' nows as good a time as any." Dean lifted the Cas' right hand thinking about the hand print on his shoulder for the second time today. Maybe he had gone through so much more than Cas let on. That made Dean angrier. "Why didn't you just ask for help when you needed it, Cas? Why did you think you had to go all heavenly Rambo?" He said a little louder than before. "Wake the fuck up Cas, or I swear…I swear I'll…" Dean started, and then something weird happened. Something so weird, it made Dean wish had had that fifth of whiskey already. He leaned over and kissed him. He lingered there, lips to the angel's forehead. He wondered if Castiel was in there. No, now that he was this close, he swore he was. Dean leaned back almost immediately, wondered what the fuck had just happened. Dean felt like he had temporarily checked out. Dean tried to rationalize why he had gone all rapey fairytale. He swore he heard someone's voice in the room, but it was too late.

Dean had started to stand, but Cas' hand reached out pulled Dean back to him and the other hand sank straight into his chest. There wasn't even time for Dean to get a proper yell out, before everything went black. Cas' eyes burned, heavenly light bursting outward from the vessel. Dean crumpled next to him and Cas' dropped him like he had been burned. He touched the man's soul. Jumpstarted his mojo. Cas sat up the whole cabin bright with light. He should be dead. Cas should be in Purgatory. Or Hell. Or at the bottom of a body of water. Why was he here? How was he here? Castiel stood, wilding trying to accept his surroundings. Something had gotten him here. He looked around. The place looked like Bobby's, but not. Beer on the table. The Winchesters, must be nearby. He stumbled backwards, feeling dizzy suddenly. He tripped over something. Someone. He heard footsteps coming from downstairs. Outside? He looked down at what he'd tripped over. It was Dean.

Dean had awoken him from some sort of sleep and Cas had, had killed him? No. No. Sam came bursting in from outside, cold air drifting in behind him. Bobby from somewhere behind him. "Castiel. What? Dean!" Then something hit him over the head. All Castiel could think about was the crumpled body of his friend at his feet. His worst of fears had all come to pass now. Every single one of them. He had made the wrong decisions. He had destroyed entire neighborhoods with his power. And even in death, he was able to destroy what he valued most. The darkness took him, succumbing to the throbbing pain of concussion. Castiel prayed that he wouldn't wake up. He prayed that this was just torture for his past sins. Prayed that Sam and Dean were alive, safe, happy, and whole.


End file.
